Monday, 29 December 2014

Some thoughts on the Letters of Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné

Reading the letters of Madame de Sévigné. The
anthologies of mother-daughter correspondence that come out today seem precious
and strained beside her enormous expressions of love. She can hardly control
herself in her excitement to get everything out, while her developed,
delightful skill of entertaining exacts a complete control. She can gossip and
even get bitchy, but she is never small-minded or cruel. But this is only the
start. Madame de Sévigné’s view of the court world is broad. Her Catholicism is
devout and needful. Her honesty about her own talents, especially as reflected
in that of her very fortunate daughter, endears her increasingly. Her
confession that she does not understand some of M. La Rochefoucauld’s new
maxims is an almost perfect example of her civilization: she obviously
comprehends the rest of them. Her self-analysis, as when she fears that her
love for her daughter is idolatry, has about it the sudden back cut of
Christina Stead. But it is her spirit – the thing you get in the spry openings,
the witty build-ups, the rolling pages of personal descriptions – that can
still seduce.